


Guilty as Charged

by cubedcoffeecake



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: And my favorite someone too, And the revenge is totally justified, Angst, But revenge is served, Gen, Hence the title, I can't believe I actually killed someone, I say that because my goal was horror but it isn't really that horrifying, One Shot, Slight horror, That's pretty much the whole fic actually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-22
Updated: 2015-10-22
Packaged: 2018-07-24 01:39:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7488354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cubedcoffeecake/pseuds/cubedcoffeecake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Avengers had been hearing all about the wonderful holiday of Halloween from Tony for weeks. Their party was going to be perfect. All the best games; Tony had forced everyone into semi-nice costumes, even. But when they began to disappear one by one... The remaining members had to figure out what was going on before they too were taken by their vengeful enemy.<br/>The worst part--they were guilty as charged.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guilty as Charged

Months. It had been mere months since the psychotic “god” Loki had attacked New York, and the Avengers had become worldwide heroes. Worldwide heroes by defeating the army of Chitauri and disposing of their leader.

“Disposing” of Loki hadn’t been pretty. When they found him lying in a crater in the Tower, he had already been mercilessly beaten by the Hulk. But the Avengers had all agreed: he needed to die.

Clint was kind enough to awaken the would-be-king before repeating on Loki what had been done to the man in Stuttgart. After that, Thor informed his companions that even near-immortals couldn’t live without their head.

Tony, Natasha, Bruce, Thor and Steve had all ignored the twist of guilt they felt as they watched Loki be killed, and continued to ignore it even now, as the city was being steadily rebuilt and their lives were relatively peaceful. No one was able to tell if Clint regretted it or not.

They all stayed together in Stark Tower, which Tony had reluctantly renamed Avenger’s Tower. Steve was slowly adjusting to the future’s culture; Thor was learning the ways of Midgard; Tony, Natasha and Clint were learning how to work with others better; and Bruce was beginning to see himself as a man, and not a monster.

Several holidays had come and gone since the battle, but none of them had caused Tony to be this excited. He had been talking about the wonderful fun of “Halloween” for _weeks_. In fact, he seemed incapable of shutting up about it.

“You’ve never bobbed for apples?!” he said to Thor in absolute horror. “We are totally bobbing for apples at my Halloween party.”

“What do you mean you’ve never dressed up for Halloween?” he asked Natasha. Before she could reply, he continued, “I’m going to make sure you have a totally amazing costume. You know what? I’m gonna make sure that you _all_ have totally amazing costumes.”

When October 31st finally arrived, the other five Avengers were quite near dreading it. Costumes, candy, and an enormous Stark party…. Yes, this event appealed only to Tony—and, to an extent, to Thor. He thought it would be relatively like the feasts held for holidays on Asgard, and was almost looking forward to it. Plus, Tony had assured him there would be plenty of Poptarts. Poptarts made everything awesome.

Tony had somehow managed to drag Natasha into a very form-fitting catsuit and ears—she was apparently catwoman. Clint was, to his horror and everyone else’s amusement, Legolas from _The Lord of the Rings_. Bruce and Steve had dressed themselves as a scientist and a marine respectively. “You—you murderers of holiday spirit!” Tony had been less than pleased. Tony was a pirate. Well, he insisted he had dressed up as Nick Fury, but the others ignored him. Thor was wearing a Captain America show-suit from the 40s, and looked downright creepy.

The party had all of the traditional games: pumpkin carving, bobbing for apples, etc. The Avengers had all been enjoying themselves for several hours, despite several members’ adamant pleas earlier that day to not be required to come.

It wasn’t until about 11:00pm that anything noteworthy happened.

“Do you have _anything_ here to eat that isn’t 100% sugar?” Clint asked—okay, he was pretty much yelling—Tony.

“Nope! It’s Halloween! The Day of Candy! Don’t be a dud and eat normal people food!” Tony exclaimed loudly. “I’m not even having any alcohol! If I can live without that for a night, you can live without potato chips.”

“Um, newsflash; alcohol isn’t potato chips,” Clint said, walking off. “I’m gonna go grab my sustenance. Be back in a few minutes.”

“DUD!” Tony called after him, glaring. Steve snickered, and Natasha shook her head.

“Steve? Would you mind going to get some actual _food_?” she asked him. “Clint won’t share his potato chips, I assure you, and that’s not really even real food either.”

“Sure thing,” Steve agreed. “How about sandwiches? I think I saw some sliced chicken in the kitchen this morning.”

“Sounds great.”

“Would you get me one too?” Bruce chimed in. “I’m pretty hungry, and getting the Other Guy on a sugar rush sounds like a really bad idea.”

“DUDS! You are all DUDS!” Tony whined. “At least Thor’s with me. Right, Thor?”

“Of course, Friend Anthony! What more does one need than Poptarts and candy?”

“Thank you.”

Natasha and Bruce shook their heads. They were beginning to talk about the team’s latest mission when Steve burst into the room, white as a sheet. “You—you guys need to see this. _Now_.”

Everyone else glanced at one another for a moment, eyes widening, before they jumped up to follow him, Thor and Tony knocking over the chairs they had been sitting in in the process.

Steve led them through the Tower to the kitchen. At first, everyone was confused… Then, they saw the door to the pantry. Written in green across the door in an elegant scrawl was written:

_**Have you missed me?** _

The others stood staring, the blood drained from their faces. “ _Loki_ ,” Thor whispered. “ _Loki_.” His voice cracked the second time. Whether it was from horror or grief was undiscernible.

“He—he took Clint,” Tony said quietly, still in shock.

“ _How_?” Natasha demanded. “He’s _dead_! There is no such thing as ghosts, and this isn’t a horror movie! And—and it’s _Clint_! He would’ve fought! There would be evidence! This—this is just Clint’s messed up revenge on Tony for making him go to the party. He’s lying in some air vent somewhere laughing at us.” She sounded so confident, so certain, that the other Avengers nodded and started back to the main room, laughing weakly at themselves for having fallen for such an obvious trick.

They re-started the festivities, resuming the games and quietly eating candy. Everything was rather half-hearted compared to before, and they were all anxiously waiting for Clint to drop out of the air vent and laugh at their overreactions, but they weren’t freaking out.

After an agonizing half hour, Bruce received a phone call.

“Really, Brucie? I don’t think I’ve ever even seen you with a phone, but you manage to get a call during my party!” Tony teased. Bruce laughed slightly.

“It’s just an old colleague I haven’t spoken to in ages. I’ll step outside for a minute and take it in the hallway.” The others nodded and went back to their game of bobbing for apples. The apples had been painted in butter, and were nearly impossible to get ahold of. Even Natasha was having trouble, and she was the queen of bobbing for apples.

Just as Thor managed to grab an apple, the four Avengers heard a crashing sound come from the hallway. With a sinking feeling of terror, they dashed out the door, praying Bruce had simply dropped his phone by accident…

When they got there, they found a cracked phone on the floor and a message on the wall.

_**Do please apologize to the doctor’s friend for my interrupting their conversation.** _

“This is a bit much, Clint. And really, Bruce. I’m ashamed. I never thought you, of all people, would encourage this,” Natasha said. The slight waver in her voice betrayed her confidence.

“He wouldn’t,” Steve murmured. Louder, he continued, “Something is going on here. I’m going to go search the Tower for the two of them. JARVIS? Where are Clint and Bruce?”

The others scolded themselves for not having thought of that earlier. “I apologize, Mister Rogers, but I do not know where Agent Barton and Doctor Banner are. The video recordings blurred when they vanished, and I am unable to locate them.”

“Well then,” Tony said hesitantly, “they must be here somewhere. JARVIS would have detected them leaving. Every door and window to outside is monitored.” The other three nodded, still shaken.

“I’ll take Natasha to check the lower—50 something floors,” Steve said. “Tony, Thor, you two take the upper half. Does everybody have their cellphones?” Everyone nodded. “Good. If you find them, call the other group. Understood?”

He received mumbled affirmations from everyone. Tony bit back a snarky comment about the army-like way Steve had given the “orders,” and gestured to Thor to follow him. Natasha and Steve took the elevator down to the ground floor, while Thor and Tony began their search in the kitchen.

The first thing the two men noticed upon entering was that the message on the pantry door was gone. They glanced at each other uneasily before beginning to look around. Thor called Clint’s name into the air vents, while Tony looked inside the cabinets. Yes, he seriously thought that Clint might be hiding in a cabinet.

Neither of them found anything, so they looked into all of the closets on the level before moving up to the next floor. Thor’s nervousness was terrifying Tony; if the _god of thunder_ was scared, who in the world _wouldn’t_ be?

About three empty floors later, Tony’s call started ringing. “Thank heavens, they found them!” Tony exclaimed in relief as smiles broke out on both his and Thor’s faces. “I’m going to kick those two jokers out of the Tower for this! I was getting seriously freaked out!”

Thor was agreeing with him as Tony pulled out his phone, answered the call and put it on speaker. Before he even had a chance to greet Natasha, she started frantically whispering across the line.

“Tony! Thank _heaven_ you’re still there. Is Thor still there?” she asked, rapid fire.

“Uh, yeah, we’re both still here…” A feeling of dread was building up in Tony. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Steve’s gone.” The news hit both Thor and Tony hard. Their eyes widened, and Tony was about to start drilling her with questions, but she kept talking. “We were in one of the storage rooms on floor 14. I turned my back for less than a minute, and when I looked back, he was gone, and there was a message saying

_**You will not find them.** _

The message was written on the crate he had been standing by. Guys, he was there and then he just _wasn’t_. No noise, no fight, absolutely _nothing_. I’m on the elevator headed up to—what floor are you on?”

“We—we’re on 74. Natasha—“

“Ok. I should be there in a moment. Tony, something is _wrong_. This isn’t just a joke.”

She hung up on them after that last comment, leaving a thoroughly terrified Thor and Tony running to the elevator to meet her.

They got there just as the elevator dinged. As the doors opened, Thor said, “Lady Natasha! Thank Valhalla that you…” He stood next to Tony staring in complete horror at the empty elevator and green message.

_**Admirable attempt.** _

“Thor…”

“No! Perhaps—they must simply be hiding! We must have nearly found Friends Barton and Banner, and they are trying to distract us!”

“ _Natasha_? _Steve_? _Bruce_? They would _never_ agree to something like this!”

“Friend Stark—we must at least look.” Thor’s normally booming voice had been gradually quieting all evening, but now, it was practically a whisper.

Tony’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah… We gotta at least try,” he agreed.

Reluctantly, the two remaining Avengers got on the elevator and went down to the ground floor, slowly searching every floor for any sign of their fellow team members—of their _friends_.

It was 3:00am by the time they were done. They hadn’t let the other out of their line of sight during the entire search. While neither Thor nor Tony had disappeared, the messages had. There wasn’t a trace of anything having happened to the four, besides Bruce’s cracked phone.

The two had tried calling Clint, Steve, and Natasha’s phones, but none of them even rang. The phones were probably destroyed.

By the time they had given up their search and returned to the room the party had been in, Tony was beyond ready for a strong drink.

“Hey, Thor. Want some scotch…” Tony turned around with the bottle of alcohol he had picked up to face his companion—to find that he had no companion.

Glass shattered across the floor as Tony caught sight of the nearest wall and dropped the bottle.

                 _ **Looks like you are the only one remaining.**_

_**Enjoy it while it lasts.** _

 

Thor gasped as the wind was knocked out of him. He looked up and felt his blood run cold. He was no longer standing in Avenger Tower with Tony. The land around him was dark, and appeared to be dry and rocky. There wasn’t a plant or living creature to be seen, no matter what direction he turned. He could hear the wind hoarsely moan as it swept over the desolate landscape, but other than that, there was nothing.

Nothing, that is, until he looked up.

The sky was alive in a way Thor had never seen—not even in Asgard. Entrancing multi-color nebulas spun above his head, accompanied by comets swiftly flying closer to the ground than he had ever imagined. They seemed to fly less than a mile above him. There were millions upon billions of stars, all shining brighter than the brightest ones visible in Midgard. The sky was as alive as the land was dead.

“Beautiful, don’t you think?”

Thor’s heart stopped. Slowly, he turned around to look at the all-too-familiar bearer of the voice. Only, he didn’t look familiar at all. He looked nothing like Thor remembered him in any of his memories, happy or not. Then again, he _was_ dead.

“Are you not happy to see me, _brother_?” The way he lowered his voice to an icy whisper on the word brother sent chills down Thor’s spine.

Loki was barely visible, and by no means corporeal. He wore his Jotunn skin. Thor had never seen his brother’s true form. Dark cobalt skin decorated with tribal markings, long black hair, and a smirk that chilled him to the bone. The worst of it was how Loki’s form was transparent and flickered.

“Not quite what it used to be, is it?” Loki asked tauntingly, following Thor’s gaze and looking at his flickering form. “Enough to do the job, though.”

Those words didn’t help calm Thor’s panic _at all_. Then again, they probably weren’t meant to. “Br—brother… What is going on? What…?” He didn’t understand. Loki was _dead_. He had killed him. Taken off his head.

His smirk grew as Loki guessed from Thor’s expression—confusion and horror mixed with repressed guilt—what he was thinking about. “How can I be here? Living? If you actually call this form _living_. I cannot even touch you. Ah, but I should not even be able to haunt you, should I? No, not since you _watched_ as Barton… “removed” my eye. No, not since you took my head from my shoulders as I _screamed_ and _begged_ you to stop. No, I should not be able to be here. I am no longer your problem, am I?” he questioned, his manic smirk growing.

“N—no! Loki, I—“

“But that is all in the past now, is it not?” Loki continued, cutting Thor off. “Now, it is _my turn_.”

“Loki! What is this?!” Thor exclaimed. Confusion was quickly giving way to terror. He was defenseless, in some strange, very uninviting land, with what appeared to be the ghost of his little brother, whom he had killed. “How are you doing this? Why?” he cried.

Laughing, Loki replied, “You never did understand me, did you?” He began to slowly circle Thor. “Surely you cannot have forgotten you own _niece_.” He had. “My precious girl, whom the All-Father banished to Helheim. Well, she did quite well there, you see. Took over the entire Realm and became queen, in fact. Queen of the dead. Well, she did her very best to make me feel welcome when you sent me there. Even told me about this remarkable holiday. All Hallow’s Eve, the mortals used to call it. A day when the border between the Realm of the living and the dead was so weak, spirits could go back to their old homes and haunt any who had wronged them. Few do it anymore, but I thought it a beautiful opportunity to ensure that you _never_ forget about the “brother” you murdered. _May you hold on to your guilt for eternity, you forað_!” he yelled, disappearing into a mist.

Thor stood, shaking in fear, shock, and guilt, for what could have been seconds or hours. There was no way of telling in this… place.

Tears welled up in his eyes, but Thor refused to allow them to spill. He took a deep breath, squeezed his eyes to clear the tears, and began to walk. He didn’t know where to go, but he needed to go somewhere.

He couldn’t remember the last time he had been this scared. He doubted that he would be able to use his fists to get out of this, but his fists were all he had. Not only that; Loki’s words haunted him. “ _No, not since you took my head from my shoulders as I **screamed** and **begged** you to stop.” “…haunt any who had wronged them_.” “… _to ensure that you **never** forget about the “brother” you murdered_.”

 

It felt like he had been traversing this barren wasteland for days, but Thor doubted it had been much more than an hour, if that. He still had not seen any sign of life here besides himself, and he was beginning to feel a gnawing loneliness. Lonely. Like Loki had always claimed to be.

Thor roared in frustration. Every thought he had was somehow twisted to involve Loki. He felt cold; Loki learning he was a Frost Giant had started all this. The blue nebulas visible when he looked up to the kaleidoscope that was the sky led to similar thoughts. Dead trees reminded him of the people Loki had killed in New York. The rocks on which he walked were nearly identical to the dreary landscape of the shore on which Loki’s meager funeral had been held. It was a never-ending cycle that he thought might drive him mad.

To his immense relief, a sound suddenly reached Thor’s ears across the wilderness. “Thor!” He stilled, straining to hear the voice again over the soft moaning of the wind. “Thor! Can you hear me? It’s Steve!” Relief flooded over him. He hadn’t thought about his friends until now, so preoccupied was he in thinking about his… “conversation” with Loki, but now he was incredibly relieved to realize that they were not only alive, but were here with him.

Horrible images of his friends meeting their ends on this forsaken rock came crashing into his mind, but he shoved them aside, focusing instead on the fact that he was no longer by himself. “Steve! Friend Steve!” he bellowed, shouting significantly louder than Steve had been. Thor squinted in the direction he thought he had heard Steve’s voice come from, and saw three wraithlike figures moving quickly toward him.

His first reaction to the sight was to step back and prepare to defend himself against foes, but he ceased his instinctual action, realizing, on closer inspection, that the figures were very clearly Clint Barton, Steve Rogers, and Bruce Banner. The land, he thought, must be wicked through and through, to the extent of disturbing one’s mind to find problems where there are none. That idea did little to dampen his spirits, however, as he began to run toward his fellow Avengers as fast as he could. He was significantly faster than all three of them—he was struck with the memory of how Loki could always beat him in a footrace—, and they quickly crossed the difference between one another.

“Thor! Thank goodness! We were so worried! Are you all right?” Steve asked, only a slight bit out of breath from the run.

“Yes, I am—quite shaken, but all right.”

Steve winced, as if, for a moment, he had forgotten about why they were all there in the first place.

“Did Loki—“talk” to you, too?” Clint asked, coming up behind Steve, a bit out of breath, but still able to speak.

“Yes. He—he had quite a bit to say.” Thor’s gaze dropped to the ground, and both of the other Avengers understood the words he hadn’t said: That Loki had had a lot of blame to place; to correctly place.

“Y-yeah,” Bruce panted, coming up behind Steve and Clint as they turned to look at him, “I guess we were all guilty as he charged us-s.” The others nodded grimly. Even Clint looked haunted by whatever Loki had said to him. None of them asked, though; there was a silent agreement between the four that their conversations with Loki were a taboo topic.

They all stood in silence for a few minutes—or was it hours?—before Thor spoke up once more. “How did you find one another? I have been wandering alone for quite some time.”

“We just kinda happened upon each other, I guess,” Bruce replied. “I was wandering around, trying not to panic and Hulk out, and Steve and Clint found me.”

“Yeah,” Steve agreed. “I found Clint pretty much right away. I headed toward the nearest landmark I could see—this enormous tree—and Clint had already climbed it and was creepily staring at me when I noticed him.”

Thor smiled half-heartedly at Clint’s attempt at mock indignation, before commenting, “Do you think the others are here?”

Steve frowned. “Aren’t Natasha and Tony at the Tower?”

“No. Lady Natasha disappeared on her way to meet Anthony and me,” Thor informed them. “We then searched the entirety of the Tower for you, but you were gone. As were the messages. It unnerved us greatly.”

The others nodded. “They told me about the messages,” Clint murmured.

Thor sighed. “Yes. Loki has always had a way with dramatics. As for Anthony, I think it is safe to assume that Loki has brought him to this strange land, as well.”

After a few more moments of tense silence, Steve suggested they continue searching for their friends, and the others agreed.

Natasha was discovered fighting terrified tears some short time later. Clint held her for a few awkward minutes, before she calmed down enough for them to continue. Loki had clearly known exactly where to strike. Though she continued to cling to Clint, she soon recovered.

It was a very, very long, silent trek later that they found Tony, curled in on himself at the base of a rock protruding from the landscape. Whether Loki had found a sensitive spot, or Tony just hadn’t recovered from his mental prodding yet, they couldn’t tell. He quickly managed to pull himself together enough to tease Natasha about when her and Clint’s wedding would be, so the others decided he was good enough to move on. To where, though, no one had the slightest idea.

As they passed a tree a little while later, Tony commented in a bored tone, “We’ve passed that tree before.” He then began to say that about _every_ tree or other landmark they passed, until the others were about ready to abandon him.

Just as he began to speak up again, Bruce exclaimed, “Look!” He pointed a bit to the west of a nearby tree… and the others froze when they saw what he was gesturing to.

It looked like a doorway, opening right in the center of the dead landscape. The soft, warm golden glow that shone through it was a sharp contrast to the bright vibrant lights of the sky above them.

“Is—is that—?” Steve stuttered, his eyes adjusting more quickly than the others’.

“That looks like a doorway crossed with a magic portal,” Tony observed. “I wanna go through it.”

Clint rolled his eyes, and was about to snap at Tony for being ridiculous at a time like this… But Tony was actually walking toward the doorway. The others quickly yelled for him to stop, and ran after him when he ignored them.

The closer Tony got to the doorway, the more it looked like you could see the skyline of New York through it. The image was so clear and sharp, though, he could barely look at it long enough to tell.

After a few moments, Tony reached the doorway and walked through it, the others following in their attempts to stop him. One moment, they were in the starry wasteland, and the next, with seemingly no transition, they were all standing on the roof of the Tower.

Natasha instantly spun around, and saw the doorway, clearly showing the land they had just left. The others slowly turned around too, and were left speechless at the sight of it.

As the first rays of morning light rose over the city, the doorway faded out of existence, and the Avengers were left standing on the roof of Avengers Tower, as if nothing had happened.

“I… that… Guys, please tell me that was not just the creepiest, most scarring nightmare of my life. That really happened - right?”

“Y- yes, Friend Stark, everything you believe happened truly happened,” Thor replied.

After a few more minutes of dumbstruck silence, Steve sprinted across the roof to the door leading inside, and the others followed. They ran to the elevator, and took it down to the level the party had taken place on, ignoring JARVIS’ questions about their wellbeing, and found the room to be void of any sign of the party that had taken place the night before.

The only thing the Avengers saw out of the ordinary was an all-too-familiar shade that was smirking at them from the corner, before it faded away.

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for a Halloween contest on Wattpad. It was supposed to be non-gory horror, which I found difficult to write. I kept brutally murdering people and then going "oh yeah, no blood" and having to cut those parts out. I brutally murdered Loki though, because if he has to die he is going DOWN.
> 
> I used an Old Norse word in Thor and Loki's dialogue. If the meaning wasn't clear, forað means monster. Also, Loki wrote his "messages" to the Avengers in his signature green. I bolded and italicized them to make them stand out, but I wanted to mention the green thing since I couldn't format that in.
> 
> Thanks for reading! God Bless!


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